A CAMERA from 1923 has been sold at auction for a world record 1.32 million euros ($1.89 million).

The Leica camera's final price shattered pre-sale estimates.

The purchaser was a private collector from Asia who wants to remain anonymous, said Vienna's WestLicht gallery, which organised the auction.

The camera was one of about 25 prototypes made in 1923, two years before the celebrated German brand went into commercial production. It had been valued ahead of the auction at about one quarter of what it eventually went for.

The previous world record was set last year when a collector paid 732,000 euros for a daguerreotype, the world's first commercially produced camera, which bore the rare signature of its French inventor.

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